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IMI Directors’ Meeting Brings Together a Diverse Group at UC-Davis

Tue, April 12, 2011

In addition to participating in the formal meeting sessions, attendees were also able to tour several facilities at the UC-Davis campus.  The tour included a graphics processing unit (GPU) facility where researchers perform computer simulations; David Britt’s electron spin residence lab; Alex Navrotsky’s thermochemistry lab; and the UC-Davis microscope facility.  Ivan Smalyukh, a meeting attendee, found the tours to be beneficial in several ways.  “One of the main goals of the IMI meeting was to encourage collaborations between IMIs whenever appropriate and possible,” says Smalyukh.  “The tours of various facilities at UC-Davis not only gave a good overview of research efforts at the university, but also provided ample time for the representatives of different IMIs to interact with each other and with the NSF representatives in a relaxed, informal setting.”  In addition to interacting informally on the tour, attendees were able to have dinner at a restaurant in Davis.

Daniel Cox, another meeting attendee, found that though the meeting’s participants came from various places and work in different fields, they share many common goals.  Some of these goals include reaching out to young people, expanding their programs’ international work, increasing diversity in the field, and improving synergies among different institutes.

The bulk of the meeting’s activities were held on Friday, October 15 when attendees presented on their respective IMIs.  Group discussion followed these presentations.  As the group was small, the meeting allowed for much interaction.  “I am sure that the meeting helped the IMIs and their leaders to start collaborating with each other,” remarked Smalyukh.  “For example, I personally had interactions with almost all meeting attendees.”

The IMIs and their representatives who presented at the meeting were:

• International Materials Institute for New Functionality in Glass
  Himanshu Jain, Lehigh University; Carlo Pantano, Pennsylvania State University


• International Institute for Multifunctional Materials for Energy Conversion
  Dimitris Lagoudas, Texas A&M University; Zoubeida Ounaies, Texas A&M University


• International Center for Materials Research
  Tresa Pollock, University of California Santa Barbara; Lubi Lenaburg, University of California-Santa Barbara


• International Materials Institute for Solar Energy and Environment
  Robert Chang, Northwestern University


• International Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter
  Daniel Cox, University of California-Davis; Ivan Smalyukh, University of Colorado-Boulder

Cox gave an overview of ICAM and discussed the organization’s activities in relation to its central mission:  the search for the organizing principles of emergence in matter.  Cox also remarked on the growth of ICAM and the addition of Novel Materials for Energy to ICAM’s central areas of interest (the others being soft matter, quantum matter, and biological matter).  He then reviewed some of the awards and activities ICAM presented to its members in 2010.

Smalyukh presented specifically on I-CAMP:  the Inter-continental Advanced Materials for Photonics school, sponsored by ICAM.  The school is designed to reach out to the world’s youth and combine advanced professional education with history and culture.  Smalyukh shared photos and activities from I-CAMP ’09 (held in China) and I-CAMP ’10 (held in Australia).  A key feature of these events is that they include real-time Webcasting and archiving of presentations.

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